


Chronostasis

by JoansGlove



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:15:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24863665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoansGlove/pseuds/JoansGlove
Summary: Joan knows not to long for impossible things but her heart won't obey.
Relationships: Doreen Anderson/Joan Ferguson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Chronostasis

**Author's Note:**

> Chronostasis (from Greek χρόνος, chrónos, "time" and στάσις, stásis, "standing") is a type of temporal illusion in which the first impression following the introduction of a new event or task-demand to the brain can appear to be extended in time. For example, chronostasis temporarily occurs when fixating on a target stimulus, immediately following a quick eye movement
> 
> As always, with thanks to Duchess

> “The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.”  
>  ― Fernando Pessoa

They say that if you care for someone then you should support them in whatever makes them happy; that you should take comfort in their happiness even if it takes them away from you. This level of selflessness, as Joan knew, is patently unachievable. Whoever invented that saying was obviously lying to themselves.

Dismissing her bodyguard, she approached the phones, her path clearing of women as they melted out of her way until she stood in the eye of her own silent storm. Her studious gaze flickered from the greasy handset clicking into its cradle to Doreen's face as she turned, and Joan felt the scratchy chill of nerves.

“I heard you got paroled.” She tried for a smile as Doreen stared at her coldly but it failed to germinate. “You okay?” she asked, concerned by the anxiety flickering beneath Doreen's stony expression.

“What do you care?”

Taken aback by her hostility Joan gave a little wounded huff. “Is that so hard to believe?” she asked.

Loathing reduced Doreen's voice to a whisper. “Yeah.”

Joan took an awkward step forward. Her words – as always happened when she tried for that human connection – refused to flow smoothly. “I, I’ve um, felt we had a special bond…” she rushed.

“Bullshit!”

“…Especially after Joshua…” but her words were lost as Doreen spoke over her.

“…I just remind you of someone else,” she said tightly. Brushing past Joan, she headed for the stairs.

“No, no, no, that’s not true!” she protested. Unable to let her go like this, she grabbed for Doreen, hand sliding down her forearm, then her wrist, fingers finally curling tightly around her thumb as she delayed her exit. She felt suddenly taut – like a drum skin – at the memory of holding Doreen’s hand like this the night she gave birth. “It’s not true. It’s not true,” she repeated. And truly it wasn’t, it never could be; but she could see that Doreen didn’t want to believe her. It suited her not to. It suited her not to give her a chance.

Doreen ripped her hand away and anger flashed in her eyes as she hissed, “Don’t you ever come near me again.”

It was a hollow threat but its sentiment hurt and, silently, Joan watched her go, hand still extended, redundant, in the widening space between them.

Fists balled at her hips and she felt her face tighten as she silently berated herself. She was a fool! An idiot! How on earth could she have let this go so far? She’d laid herself on the line for Doreen time and again and for what? She’d paid the price of her own liberty just to keep Doreen's world from shattering – and for what? Revulsion? Fear? Whatever grain of gratitude she may have once harboured is long gone, that much is abundantly clear. The heat of resentment and that nasty word – failure – prickled painfully over her body, trapped beneath the ugly teal sweats she favoured.

Once a ghost, she now commanded the attention of every woman, which meant that she was always surrounded by suspicious, watchful eyes, and the owners of those eyes had wagging tongues. She couldn’t stay out there on the landing; not when she felt like this.

*****

Securing her privacy against further exposure she set a lackey to guard the habitat’s entrance.

This cell (they liked you to call it a dorm nowadays but these concrete boxes would always be cells to her) was no different from any other but her eyes roved its bare, dingy dimensions as if for the first time. Doreen had already gifted most of her meagre possessions away but what memories she’d chosen to keep sat in a box on the desk. Joan’s fingers trailed over those things and she memorised the braille of Doreen's life. Beneath the thin pillow Doreen's pyjamas lay neatly folded, ready for one last night before she left all of this behind. Before she left her behind.

Would she be able to forgive Doreen this newest insult as she had done with all the others? Her dogged loyalty to Smith, her dalliance with that man and resulting pregnancy – they were understandable; even sullying Jianna’s memory by telling Smith – she should have expected it. All of these things she’d accepted. She might even be able to forget them – if only Doreen would give her a reason to.

In her first days out in General, Doreen had been her protector – she would never forget that kindness.

This new wave of hatred though was supposedly over Gambaro’s punishment. But she doubted it. Doreen hated Gambaro, she’d even gone toe to toe with Smith over her attack on that poor Tasha girl. Doreen should be pleased that Joan had put a rapist and all-round malcontent out of circulation. But no; Joan could see it for the excuse it was and her mouth turned down at the corners as a pang of sorrow forced a heavy sigh from her nose.

And again, that same accusation. Of not caring. She had tried to show Doreen that it wasn’t true – and Doreen had done very well out of those times if she remembered correctly – but it was as if those things meant nothing to her now. How could you prove that you cared to someone who met your every word, your every action with suspicion and disbelief? Whether she liked it or not though, they did have a connection, and it hadn’t got there on its own had it? Perhaps though, it wasn’t necessarily a case of believing her… Doreen was angry that she reminded her of Jianna.

Was that it then? A simple case of jealousy? If things had been different could she have soothed her fears? Could she have made her trust her? She knew that she could have.

She wants Doreen to view her favourably. But if you were to fight your way past all of Joan’s defences and make it up the narrow staircase to her room of truths, if you could pick the lock and, plucking the fruit from the crazed bowl that sits on the small table, peel away all the layers of romantic artifice then you would discover what she really wanted, because beneath all of this, what she wanted was for Doreen to be pliable. Open to her will. Getting Joan to admit it, however, would be a mightier task even than finding out the truth in the first place.

But Doreen would never be that person. Smith’s brainwashing had seen to that. Yet Smith had used her as surely as she herself had. Where was the fairness there? For someone who supposedly knew Smith so well, Doreen seemed wilfully oblivious to her mental state in those last few days, preferring to believe the narrative of murder instead of daring to consider the truth.

She couldn’t recall how the pyjama jacket had found its way into her hands or against her lips, but she couldn’t bring herself to put it back where it belonged. Beneath the worn foam, the steel flexed as she sat on Doreen's bed, continuing to rub the brushed cotton dreamily under her nose like a small child with their blankie as her thoughts spilled over their retaining wall.

For most of her life, she’d considered friendship to be something other people have, and whilst she scorned what she viewed as the need in others to be liked, to be homogenous, she’d found herself inexorably drawn to the idea of having a friend in Doreen. So much so that she had blinded herself to the consequences.

The times she’s castigated herself for being so different! If she wasn’t like this then she wouldn’t scare the one she wants to like her most as she does. All of that unpleasantness around Mr Taylor – it was all for Doreen's own good; on that she stands firm. That man would ultimately drag her down; all the progress she’s made in becoming a better person would fall by the wayside as she tried to manage his weakness and inevitable failure. But Doreen won’t accept that fact until she becomes so deeply mired she can’t get out, and in the meantime she hated her for being the teller of unwanted truths.

It was at these rare times that she thought her difference a weakness. A weakness in herself that she had encouraged through denial. She’d denied herself the foibles of humanity for so long that it unsettled her to find herself succumbing to forgotten, forbidden feelings. But that denial was necessary to her survival.

Because, if she didn’t shield these vulnerable places and a barb got through then the ground opened up and she found herself sliding down a helter-skelter of emotion. Sometimes she could brace her hands and feet against the sides and at least slow, if not actually halt, her descent but usually not. Usually, she could only surrender herself to the unsettling descent.

To the downward spiral.

Spinning helpless like a leaf in the vortex of a drain.

And hope that she was still in one piece when she was finally disgorged.

She’d crafted herself this skin-tight armour. She’d had to. But now she found it hard to take it off. Defensive plates encased her heart. Strong doors barred her memories. But she heard them creak, felt them rattle when she looked at Doreen.

In the dark solitude of her bed, whether it was her own with the heavy quilt moulding sensuously to her naked body or in here with a knee pressed against the wall, bare foot slipping over the cold floor, she had spread herself for Doreen. In the steamy, slippery seclusion of the shower stall, with soapy fingers magicking the tingling flutter of angels’ kisses that would ultimately drop her to her knees, she had cried out for Doreen. In the quiet moments when daydreams took over, imagining the glorious act of pleasing Doreen with a tenderness that brought on the sting of tears, she had ached for the one who does not want her.

She knew that she was a fool to herself, but she looked forward to the soft feeling that loosened her spine whenever she saw the woman who will never call her Joan. That first glimpse of Anderson was always the best; the purest moment that this mean existence had to offer her. For a fraction of a second she would feel her mask slip, muscles slackening as the familiar sense of wonder flashed through her. She knew that she’d forever feel the desire to kiss that mouth of hers, and her lips twitched as she allowed her imagination its freedom.

The smell of Doreen filled her nose, a soft, sleepy scent, sweetly fusty yet charged with a sourness that spoke to something in her core. She’d done this before – a million years ago, in a different uniform, a different life… facing a very different loss.

It was quiet in there. Just the sound of her own breath. Her own thoughts.

She weakened.

Doreen's mouth dragged against her own, opening it; the phantom flicker of her questing tongue sending the grubby wall to meet Joan’s shoulders as she closed her eyes, conjuring the taste of her forbidden fruit whilst a tightness twisted between her thighs. Heavy breasts with swollen nipples, dark and enticing, swayed above her face, then their weight filled her palms, their satiny heat caressing her cheek then her lips. The twisting in her cunt unravelled, flowing into to a steady pulse: thick, demanding, distracting; and her groan dampened the bunched fabric at her lips. She did the things she did to Jianna to Doreen. She did the things she did to herself to Doreen.

Functional elastic yielded easily to her delving hand and her fingers slipped purposefully between her legs, flattening her clit as she massaged the soft swell of her cunt through the flimsy fabric of her underwear. A trembling ache arrowed out from her groin and a tugging sensation – bright like burning gold – grew in her bones, almost as if they sought to rise out of her heavy flesh as it liquefied in pleasure. More elastic yielded and she pushed her fingertips into the pool of her excitement – hot and slick and unctuous – and as she spread it across her clit a small cry escaped her lips. More cries followed as she circled her clit with a roughness that had her hips lifting from the bed and she stifled her yelps, cramming her excitement back into her mouth, with Doreen's pyjamas.

Her sudden climax ambushed her in a series of bright, glancing bursts, making her jerk – almost bounce – with its explosive force; but it lacked that deep, grinding release that left her sated and drowsy. Instead she slumped, twitching and unsettled, issuing heavy, startled breaths that fractured as bolts of sensation ricocheted through her unsatisfied flesh.

A distant shout pulled her back to the moment and her eyes found the empty doorway as she quickly rearranged her underwear and pulled her hand from the damp warmth of her groin. Satisfied of no imminent interruption, she permitted herself a final farewell to her futile fantasy and ran her sticky fingertips across the tip of her tongue, savouring the taste as she imagined it to be Doreen's, and began to order her defences once more. Pushing herself upright onto shaky legs she flexed her fingers, breaking the fragrant glue that sealed them together and her attention turned to the gleaming sink. Wholly focused on ridding her cuticles of the rinds of thick, translucent residue caked around their edges, she kept her eyes on the task, only raising them as she replaced the hand towel on its hook.

Joan’s wavering reflection stared back at her from the dull steel rectangle of mirror and she felt a cold blade, sharp and deadly as a guillotine, descend and divorce her from the warmth of her fantasy. She remembered now. A lost fragment from That Night.

“ _I heard you,”_ she’d said. _“Just after you gave birth... you told Smith about us. And then... you laughed at me and called me a freak._ ” Her reflection had distorted, bulging and narrowing – as if the monster inside was seeking release from the confines of her skin – more representative of the way she’d felt at that precise point than she’d had words to describe; still didn’t, even now. “ _I trusted you_.”

This girl couldn’t have hurt her worse if she’d flayed her with a blade edged in salt.

But this girl… This girl, who touched her heart when no other could, who had caused her to manufacture a disastrously false sense of loyalty between them, this girl who had revealed her most treasured and most tragic memory to her most determined opponent; who had delivered her a death of a thousand cuts. This girl was the embodiment of pleasure and pain yet, in spite of herself, she would trust Doreen still – if permitted.

Joan pushed the thought out with a heavy sigh and stared into the dark pools of her eyes, searching the blur of her reflection for the fool that tended this irrational hope of hers like a rose in the most barren of deserts. There she was, with that stupid, dreamy look on her face; she sighed again, chin dropping to her chest as heavy lids drew a curtain over her foolishness and she willed herself back into the real world. 

A commotion outside. The sound of footsteps. Joan tensed.

“What’re you doing in here? Get out!” Doreen's voice rang with a false bravado as she stepped inside her cell.

Joan didn’t look at her at first, instead she turned away and made a show of shaking out Doreen's crumpled pyjama top. “Now, now, Doreen, don’t be like that,” she said, carefully folding it into a neat rectangle and slipping it beneath the pillow. “I just wanted to wish you well in your future endeavours.” Coolly, she turned her head and met Doreen's angry glare.

“I told you to never come near me again!”

With a look of chagrin, Joan pulled herself up to her full height and approached her, those three short steps lasting an eternity. To her credit, Doreen stood her ground but she couldn’t help flinching as Ferguson slid past her and pulled the door shut.

How easily her body assumed the stance of authority, her right hand cradling the left as they met below her navel, shoulders back, chin held high and proud as she looked down on her subjects. “Doreen, you seem to forget that I’m Top Dog.” Her tone was mild but her eyes were hard as she stared at the young woman’s profile. “And as Top Dog, you don’t get to tell me what to do. Even if you are about to leave here.”

Doreen turned and looked Ferguson up and down. “You’ll never be my Top Dog,” she spat. “Get out of my room.” In a show of contempt she spun on her toes and moved to the sink, offering Ferguson her back as she began to wash her hands.

Doreen’s words hurt more than they should and Joan pushed down a sudden flare of anger – this was a fight she most definitely didn’t want to have. Sometimes it felt as if she was reconstructed from pieces of herself, like a broken bowl that’s been inexpertly glued back together; cracks hidden from a distance but up close you see the imperfectly aligned shards; touch it and you feel the sharp edges of the glaze, the rough porcelain beneath. She could hide the cracks with a glamour – people rarely wanted to look past her outward charm – but she knew that for anyone stepping behind that curtain it was all too easy to get cut, to get sliced; to wince and pull away.

“I only ever wanted to be your friend, Doreen. That’s all.” She swallowed against the strange, naked feeling of honesty. Fifty plus years of learning how to navigate this world and here she was, as defenceless as a new-born lamb. 

“Yeah, right!” she scoffed and grabbed for the towel.

“No, no, I did!” she exclaimed earnestly. “You’re not like those others, I know you’ll make something of yourself. It shines right through, Doreen.”

“No?” Doreen flung the towel into the sink and raised her chin as she turned to face Ferguson. “I’m _exactly_ like them! It’s you who’s not like us, Freak!” she hissed sweeping her contemptuous gaze over the monster in front of her.

Joan sighed heavily. “You know,” she said coolly. “I’ve tried so hard to be understanding, Doreen, but there comes a time when even my patience wears thin.” She took a step forward. “Whether you like it or not there comes a time when the truth must be acknowledged, facts accepted. Bea Smith,” she said as she took another step closer still. “You loved her but she was a murderer; you loved her but she tortured Spiteri, put Gambaro in a wheelchair and scalped that poor Tasha girl; you still loved her even though she destroyed Birdsworth’s parole. How did that feel, Doreen, to see your best friend back inside like that, hm? Did Jenkins’ punishment make up for Liz’s bashing?” Doreen looked as if she was about to say something but held her tongue. “The magnificent Bea Smith – whom all of you eventually wore out and ate up – your fabled Top Dog might still be here if she hadn’t used me to engineer her suicide. Do you want to know what her final words were? She said ‘ _I win_.’ Not really the words of a murder victim are they?” Joan paused as Doreen looked away, unwilling to believe. “I mean, do you really think that I would hack away at someone under the watch of a dozen cameras right at the very moment I was due to leave as a free woman? Do you? Would I _really_ risk everything I have out there to kill someone who was no longer a threat to me? It just doesn’t make sense, does it? She used me, Doreen, the same as she used you and everybody else.”

They stared at each other – Joan with her head cocked to one side, Doreen with denial flashing angrily in her eyes.

“And Doyle,” she continued. “You love her too. Another killer. A woman that murdered the Governor of this prison; a woman whose greed caused that Korean girl to die of a massive and totally preventable overdose; a woman that filled this prison with drugs – drugs that killed Slater and gave her best friend another seven years in here. Yes,” she said in agreement as Doreen thrust out her chin at the undeniable truth. “You choose to have friends like that yet you accuse me of the same things and hate me for it.”

Anger made Doreen's voice vibrate. “You threatened the safety of my unborn child, and you planted drugs on Nash to put him back inside.”

Doreen's face was ugly with hate and Joan felt a hot stab of resentment. “Those were things that I had to do as Governor. But I wasn’t being the Governor when I saved your baby from being smothered to death, Doreen. And nor was I when I helped you outwit Vera to get you your conjugal visits with Nash. Is it so wrong to want to help someone?” she waited for an answer but it didn’t come. “There’s ways that I can help you when you leave too, I know it won’t be easy out there…”

“I don’t want anything from you!” spat Doreen. “You’re nothing but poison. Look what you did to Juice!”

“What, you don’t see the justice there? Have you forgotten about all of the women she’s attacked in her time?” Doreen looked away with a guilty grimace. “I feel a responsibility to you women to keep you from serious harm.”

Doreen's expression changed in an instant. “You fucking psycho! You don’t give a fuck about us! You did that for _you!_ ”

“No, you’re wrong.” Her lips were dry and she wet them hesitantly. “I, I give a fuck about you, Doreen.”

She edged backwards, arms crossed over her ample chest. “You needn’t bother! I’m not into that shit. Just leave me the fuck alone, yeah?”

“Doreen!” Joan glanced away, shaking her head in a huff of exasperation. “What do you think I’m going to do to you?” she demanded almost peevishly.

Doreen looked Ferguson up and down again and pulled a face. “With you? Who knows. But it won’t be nuthin’ good,” she said.

Perplexed, Joan took another step forward and Doreen shuffled back again, glancing nervously behind her at the diminishing space between her and the wall. “Do you think that I’m going to molest you?” Joan asked, gazing down into her fearful defiance. “You do, don’t you? You really do,” she realised in hurt wonder, and stepped back. “Huh!” Doreen may as well have just reached into her chest and crushed her heart. The pain was fierce, ripping at her, and she struggled to maintain her composure as reflexive anger prickled and burned beneath her skin. She took a deep breath, balling up all of those foreign feelings that made her want to throw herself on Doreen's mercy, and blew it out through her nose in a long sigh. “Why can’t you just believe me?” she asked quietly.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why single me out and not some other poor bitch?”

“I told you. Because you’re different.” She offered a tentative smile and sat down, making herself smaller, less threatening.

“Because I remind you of that Jianna girl, you mean,” Doreen replied resentfully. “Well, I ain’t her!”

Joan nodded. “There were similarities between your situation and hers, yes; but you are very different people, you know?”

“You don’t know me, Freak.”

Joan glanced down at her hands. She might not know her favourite colour, or what music she liked but she knew what sort of woman Doreen was. She looked up and smiled at the girl, holding her gaze as she gave a little nod. “No, I do, Doreen. You're loyal and compassionate and nurturing. You’ve grown into a thoughtful young woman with a conscience and principles, and you have the bravery to fight for what’s right; and as you mature I believe that you will become a woman to be reckoned with. But you need to keep true to who you are, Doreen, you need to rise above others’ petty squabbles and do what is right – don’t let other people colour your judgement, don’t become their pawn. Anything negative that you experienced as part of Smith’s or Doyle’s crew was because you allowed yourself to become embroiled in someone else’s fight.”

“Oh yeah? Well, it felt bloody personal!”

“But surely you can see that it wasn’t, Doreen? Never forget that it was Smith who put you in my firing line.”

“No. No, I can’t see. And there’s nuthin’ you can say that’ll ever change that.”

“Apparently not.” She fought to keep the bitterness from her voice. “Maybe one day you’ll think differently but in the meantime I, I’d like to set up a trust fund for little Joshua.” She’d wanted to say Shayne and had found her tongue shaping his name before she caught herself; she’d let him down badly, she didn’t want to see another child suffer unnecessarily. “It’s nothing much, just enough to see him right when he’s old enough to need it.”

Doreen's eyes widened in surprise before her brow creased and she challenged, “Why? Why would you want to do that?”

“No strings, I assure you,” Joan said mildly, brushing the question aside. “It’s all set up, just give my lawyers a call when you’re settled and they’ll arrange everything.”

“Keep it. I don’t want nuthin’ from you!”

“It’s not for you, it’s for young Joshua.”

“You keep away from him!” she snarled. “He doesn’t need you in his life.”

“I, I, no…” stuttered Joan and reached out towards Doreen as if touching her would restore her flow of words. “You likely won’t believe this but, but I feel a sense of responsibility towards him.” Doreen's sleeve grazed her fingers as she shrugged her arm away and Joan let her hand fall to the bed. “He has his life because of me and it’s my duty to see that he lives it well.”

Doreen's eyes softened for a moment but they quickly hardened with habitual wariness. Her voice shook, rising in pitch as she tried to control her words. “Look, I won’t forget what you did, but I’m not going to forget everything else as well. I don’t like you, I don’t trust you, and I don’t ever wanna think about you ever again after tomorrow. So how about you get out of my room like I said, yeah?”

“Doreen…”

“Just get out!” she shouted. “Go on, fuck off !”

It was as if she was fighting against quicksand as she stood. Her body was dead but she could still feel the tearing pain of Doreen's rejection, and despite all of her years of practised artifice, she couldn’t hide it. There was a darkness gathering around Joan and it unbalanced her with its vertiginous portent. She didn’t know if she had the strength left to lose the only thing that had ever made her feel human in here. With effort, she pulled what she could of herself together – an indrawn breath and sharp twist of her neck, then a gentle tilt of her sleek head – and she turned her face to Doreen's once more.

“Very well,” she said tightly. “I wish you all the best. Like I said, if there’s anything that I can do to make life easier well, you know where to reach me.”

Doreen's desperate desire for her to be gone was so strong that it almost pushed her through the door but she reached out and grabbed the doorframe, resisting the pull of the threshold like a fool expecting a reprieve. “Well, goodbye then,” she said softly but she may as well have bid farewell to a lump of granite, and as Joan's eyes slipped from Doreen’s she dipped her head with a cracked ‘hm’ and stepped backwards into a life without light.


End file.
